Nitrocellulose lacquer is commonly used to finish wood furniture due to its ease of application, repairability, clarity and tolerable early print resistance. Print resistance is the ability to resist "printing" or "blocking", the impression left in the coating when another article is stacked on top of the coated substrate. Blocking occurs when the finish does not dry fast enough. Cross-linking the coating, e.g., by reaction of the free hydroxyl groups of nitrocellulose with polymeric isocyanates to produce urethane linkages, will improve the mar, chemical and early print resistance. However, an even more rapid development of print resistance would be desirable.
One method for overcoming this blocking problem is the use of a catalyst in vapor form to accelerate the curing of paints and coatings at room temperature as described in British patent No. 2,142,843, British patent application No. 2,166,976 and Australian patent application No. 62772/86. The process involves exposing a wet coating to catalyst molecules in a turbulent atmosphere. The catalyst impinges onto and permeates the film, causing rapid polymerization to take place.
Another method for decreasing the drying and blocking time is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,517,222. This process involves concurrently generating an atomizate of (1) a coating composition comprising a hydroxy functional compound and a polyisocyanate and (2) a carrier gas bearing a catalytic amount of a vaporous tertiary amine, mixing the atomizate and the catalyst-bearing carrier gas, and directing the mixture onto the substrate to form a film.
Both of these methods require large expenditures of capital for special equipment and the resulting coating may still lack the rapid rate of development of block resistance that is desired.